Preliminary: The Senate | Representative Profile

The name of the game is consistency. You must write a bill that is consistent with the profile you craft for yourself as a member of Congress. Answer the questions first. Then create an introductory page for yourself as a U.S. Senator. You may design your page using whatever tool you like: prezi, glogster, word, adobe, etc. It might help to look at a few pages from actual members of the Senate for some ideas. Here's the link to the Senate pages: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Once you're answered the questions, you can build your web presence. If you want to do both simultaneously that's fine too.
Free blog sites:

• blogger http://www.blogger.com/home?pli=1
• wix http://www.wix.com/
• webshttp://www.webs.com/
  
  
• What is your background? (family, education, previous political experience)
  • You can take a look at a detailed profile of the 112th Congress here for ideas about average age, income, previous experiences:Congressional Research Service: Profile of the 113th Congress
    
    
• What is your political party?
  • You need to be considerate of your issue here. The political party you represent will influence the type of bill that you write.
  • Political Ideology Quizzes: http://www.politopia.com/quiz_index.php | http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz
• What are your major issue areas? You might just have one. That's fine.
  • What got you interested in your issue?

• What state do you represent? What district?
  • You need to be considerate of your issue in making this decision also. Again, consistency is important. You should already know some of your allies in Congress as well as some of your opponents. Choose wisely.
  • If you are in the House of Representatives, you'll also need to determine which district in your state you will represent.
    • history of the district
    • political leadnings
    • demographic characteristics
    • economy/unemployment
    • geography

• What is your approach to representation?
  • Are you a delegate? a politico? a trustee?
    
    
• What committees would you like to serve on in Congress? Are you a leader? (If you're in the majority party, you can serve as committee chair. If you are in a the minority party, you can serve as ranking member.) The majority and minority leaders will determine committee membership, but you can make some requests.
  • This is extremely important. Membership on powerful committees---particularly leadership roles on these key committees---is a key way that members of Congress are able influence the legislative process and enhance their campaign war chests. The key is to serve on a committee that corresponds to your issue. As a member of the Senate you serve on several committees. Within each of those committees, you would also serve on a subcommittee.View a list of Congressional Committees here:http://www.opencongress.org/committee
    
    
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• Who's going to be on your staff? This is just lagniape but if you want, set up an office staff: here are some of the positions you need to fillhttp://www.congresslink.org/print_basics_staffpositions.htm and the amount of money allocated to you by the federal government to pay their salaries.